2TB Seagate Drive help

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BusterK

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Hi everyone, I have a 2TB Seagate Freeagent drive with some problems- I was hoping for some DIY answers.

The problem: I have a lot of backed up files on my drive, and when I connect it to my iMac now it gives me this error message:

"The disk "*Drivename*" was not repairable by this computer. It is being made available to you with limited functionality. You must back up your data and reformat the disk as soon as possible."

I am unable to access certain files/folders- when I try opening some folders, it just sends me back to the root folder. I have, however, been able to access some files and copy them to the HD on my iMac occasionally.

To be honest I'm not quite sure what caused this- it may have been:

1. The disk has been ejected accidentally by force, with files being accessed at the time.
2. The disk may have fell down on its side, and was ejected by force with files being accessed at the time.

My iMac is an Intel, running OSX 10.5.8.

Is my drive busted beyond repair? I'd like to be able to recover all of my data if possible- either by being able to back up the existing files on the drive, and then reformatting the HD, or by repairing the HD and make it usable again.

Sorry I am a bit new to using terminal... I read somewhere else about using it to fix the drive, with the risk of damaging the data, so I was a bit hesitant to use terminal to fix it yet. At this point I don't mind the risk since the drive is basically unusable, but I'd like to be able to recover my data if possible.

edit: Oh I forgot to mention that when I try to open certain files, I get an error saying that the file is already in use. I don't have an apps running though...
 
Last edited:
gsahli said:
Nearly everyone here will recommend you get Disk Warrior:
http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/
You weren't clear about this - what format is the hard drive? Did you partition/format it when new?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the fast reply- the format is Mac OS Extended (Journaled), sorry I didn't mention it. I formatted it when new, but I'm not sure what you mean by "partition".

I have a copy of DiskWarrior thankfully, but when I try rebuilding the drive it gets stuck on the 5th stage "locating directory data". When I canceled the operation, it says "directory cannot be rebuilt due to disk hardware failure (-36, 2541)". Strange though, when I hook the drive back up after ejecting it, I can still view some files, but again I get the error message "The disk "*Drivename*" was not repairable by this computer. It is being made available to you with limited functionality. You must back up your data and reformat the disk as soon as possible."
 
BusterK said:
Thanks for the fast reply- the format is Mac OS Extended (Journaled), sorry I didn't mention it. I formatted it when new, but I'm not sure what you mean by "partition".

I have a copy of DiskWarrior thankfully, but when I try rebuilding the drive it gets stuck on the 5th stage "locating directory data". When I canceled the operation, it says "directory cannot be rebuilt due to disk hardware failure (-36, 2541)". Strange though, when I hook the drive back up after ejecting it, I can still view some files, but again I get the error message "The disk "*Drivename*" was not repairable by this computer. It is being made available to you with limited functionality. You must back up your data and reformat the disk as soon as possible."
Click to expand...

That drive is failing. You are going to need to get it out of the enclosure. Get a USB ATA/SATA dock. Get a good quality cloning program like Data Rescue 3 (it's actually recovery software but has a pretty rock solid cloning utility I've successfully used many times). Then get another drive equivalent in size to the failing drive to clone to. Last but not least, a good desk fan to cool the failing drive while the clone is being done. Also, the machine running the clone may be tied up creating the clone for a week or so. I had one recently that took more than 5 days, and one prior to this that ran nearly two weeks. So, whatever machine is doing the work is going to be running 24 hrs a day (not sleeping) and will essentially be immobile. If all this makes you a little queasy, you may want to pay a specialist.
 
djackmac said:
That drive is failing. You are going to need to get it out of the enclosure. Get a USB ATA/SATA dock. Get a good quality cloning program like Data Rescue 3 (it's actually recovery software but has a pretty rock solid cloning utility I've successfully used many times). Then get another drive equivalent in size to the failing drive to clone to. Last but not least, a good desk fan to cool the failing drive while the clone is being done. Also, the machine running the clone may be tied up creating the clone for a week or so. I had one recently that took more than 5 days, and one prior to this that ran nearly two weeks. So, whatever machine is doing the work is going to be running 24 hrs a day (not sleeping) and will essentially be immobile. If all this makes you a little queasy, you may want to pay a specialist.
Click to expand...
OK, so even if I reformatted the disk it would still be unusable, I take it? I know hardware failure means I'm pretty much screwed. The specialists I've researched online charge insane amounts for data recovery, so I'd probably opt for the DIY option.

Quick question though with that program, is it possible to split up the data over several drives? I have a few extra drives but not one with the same storage capacity.

Worst case scenario I might just try to salvage what I can and get a new drive hopefully covered under my warranty.

Thanks for all your help, I'm going to have to think about my options before I make a final decision.
 
Hi, I deal with support of Macs, Unix/Linux and Windows computers and have for more than 2 decades. The absolute best consumer recovery software, especially after Disk Warrior did not work for you, is SpinRite by grc.com

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

I have always run the recovery from a Windows machine; but it boots into it's own operating system (non-windows) and can read and repair every drive file system.

I recently backed up 500GB onto a 2TB Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk external drive. As soon as the backup was done, my Mac Pro running Snow Leopard stopped recognizing that the drive was even attached to the Mac, let alone read any files from the Seagate drive. Spinrite, level 2, went over the whole drive and took about 10 hours on a 2TB drive. When it was done I plugged it back into my Mac Pro and all has operated well ever since (running constantly for the last month).

SpinRite 6 has even let me fully recover data from drives that were starting the 'click of death'. My suggestion would be that if you can read any of your files, copy the ones you can read onto a different drive 1st - even back onto your system drive if your only copy is on your backup drive.

SpinRite runs about $90. I don't consider myself a SpinRite expert, just someone who has used it successfully at least 20 times.

Hope this helps and provides some hope for you and your files!
 
as a P.S.

Disk Warrior is just a file-system recovery tool for Mac's. Thus Disk Warrior has to be able to 'see' the data on your Seagate drive.

SpinRite is a harddrive drive-repair and data-recovery tool that is not limited to any current operating system nor file system your drive is using. SpinRite should allow your Mac to 'see' its files once again. Then if some still are missing, Disk Warrior may help at that point.

Just as another future point, or for other people with drives older than yours:
If a hard drive is 3+ years old, chances are good that the drive itself is at fault. Your drive is new enough, it probably is not the drive itself (sometimes called the drive mechanics).

All the best to you.
 
BusterK,

If you seem to be running into a dead end with all this, let me know in a follow up post in this thread. Maybe we can figure something out. I kind of pride myself in doing what everyone else can't be done.

Kerry
 
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